


like sleep to the freezing

by naimeria



Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Peril, Torture, no historical accuracy here, seriously there is pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naimeria/pseuds/naimeria
Summary: The room he’s in is featureless and barren, a wooden chair and desk his only company. He shifts to try and stand up, and nearly smacks his head into the wall beside him when he can’t get his foot under him.His ankles are shackled together with a rusted chain.“Fuck,” he murmurs into the room. No one is there to hear it, of course.(the darkness of capture during wartime.keep an eye on the tags. I'm no friend to gore, but this does get dark.)
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	like sleep to the freezing

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday john laurens have some torture

Consciousness comes slowly. Pain and darkness are all he knows, until he’s able to choke out a breath, stomach roiling and ground wobbling beneath him like a ship at sea. He has no recollection of what got him here - whiskey or cannon fire, either is likely. Shifting proves to be a Very Bad Idea when he levees himself up on one elbow and his senses forget how to tell up from down, and his stomach flops violently until he’s hunched over and gagging. Nothing comes up, but the effort leaves him exhausted, head throbbing with every beat of his heart. 

John blinks wearily up at the ceiling, seeing nothing notable, and closes his eyes. Assessment.

Nothing feels broken, though his ribs ache in a familiar way that tells him he’s been in a fight. His head is pounding, and between that and the tacky spot in his hair, he knows that’s where the nausea is coming from. He’s cold, his coat still on but his boots gone, his gloves too. 

The room he’s in is featureless and barren, a wooden chair and desk his only company. He shifts to try and stand up, and nearly smacks his head into the wall beside him when he can’t get his foot under him. 

His ankles are shackled together with a rusted chain. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs into the room. No one is there to hear it, of course. 

The next time John wakes, he has more of his senses about him. Granted, he doesn’t remember falling asleep, but there’s worse things to worry about. Like how a band of redcoats managed to catch him unaware, and how they managed to drag his ass off the field unnoticed by anyone. 

Hamilton. 

They’d been delivering correspondence. Where was Alexander? 

The panic that floods him gives him the adrenaline he’s been missing, and he sits up and starts yanking on the chain restricting his ankles. They’re already raw, torn through his stockings and scraping against tender flesh, but if he can slide one heel through - 

The only door opens, and John looks up with a scowl. He doesn’t stop trying to slide one foot through the chain until one of the men comes over and grabs him by the hair. “You can either cut that out, or I’ll tie your hands together.” 

John spits in his face. 

The hand holding his hair slams his temple into the wall, whip quick, and John can’t even shout before he’s out like a light. 

The third time he comes to, his head aches to the point that John would rather they just cut it off. 

“I, uh,” he says to the empty room. Shoulder pressed against the cool wall, John tries bringing a hand up to his temple, but he can’t for some reason. Looking down, he sees rope wound tight around both wrists.

“Oh.”

Still, he’s not known for lying back and accepting his lot in life, so he tries to stand, aiming for the chair by the desk. There’s a lamp, flame casting a dull light across the room. He can burn the rope, and that’ll free his hands at the very least. 

He isn’t even fully upright before he falls on his ass for the second time in recent memory, the ground rocking so badly he’s soon groaning into the cool stone floor. “Fuck,” he breathes into the floor. His head has never hurt so bad in his life, and he can’t chain his thoughts together enough to even think about escape again. 

For a while, his existence is just the freezing stone beneath him, the steady _throb throb throb_ of his aching head, and the flickering flame across the room. John breathes, and tries to understand. 

The only reason he can think why he’d been kept alive is information. His status as an aide-de-camp isn’t widely known, and if he’d been jumped for the information he’d been delivering, then they would have it. So what is the point of keeping him alive? 

With a jolt, he remembers Hamilton again, and hopes to God he got back to camp. If their transcripts hadn’t been intercepted, then their numbers are still safe and guarded back with their General. He doesn’t remember the attack, which means they must have attacked him first, indisposing him so they could go after Alexander. If they’d gotten to him, that would mean he would be here too, right? 

If he’s not here, he’s back at camp, John decides. Any other option is unacceptable. 

The door opens again, and this time there’s three men. One stays by the door, the two that walk to him slight but armed. One has a pistol at his hip, the other a worn sword. 

“You spit on me again, I’m cutting off a finger.” 

John smiles, hoping there’s blood in his teeth. 

The man with the gun sits in the chair, the other leans up against the desk, as if they’re going to discuss the rough winter they’ve been having. “Plans. Next targets, how many ships, how many cannons.” They watch him expectantly. The man up against the desk looks bored. 

“Just a footsoldier,” he says, grateful he’s not Lafayette with his flashing epaulettes. “If it’s information you want, you got the wrong guy.” 

They look on, unimpressed. So maybe his words had slurred a bit; they got the message. Whether they believed it was yet to be seen. 

“Alexander Hamilton is no footsoldier. We know you oversee your General’s plans.” 

John opens his mouth. Closes it. They think he’s Alexander. He can either run with it, or deny. He opens it again. Play dumb. “Who’s Alexander Hamilton?”

Not that dumb. 

The seated man stands up and grabs him by the hair again. Typical. “This has already taken too long. Test our patience and you’ll regret it.” A dagger is held to his neck and okay, somehow he’d missed seeing that. When he swallows, the blade digs into his throat. 

It’s not fear he feels, though. He grins up at the man, the dried blood next to his mouth tugging at the skin on his chin. “I’ll die before I tell you anything. You gotta know that.” 

The blade digs in harder, the hand held in his hair unyielding, and he can’t move. There’s a pinch and a burn, and he feels a trickle of blood roll down into his cravat. “We don’t care if you live or die. We just want the information kept up here.” He lets go of John’s hair, only to prod his temple, right where his head had previously met the wall. John hisses and wrinkles his nose in a scowl, breathing through his teeth past the pain. 

“Numbers. Or you start losing fingers.” 

“You seem pretty focused on my fingers.” His fingers which, between the cold and the tautness of the rope, have long since lost all feeling. 

The man leaning against the desk stands, sword still safe in it’s hilt. He’s thin but tall, as tall as Mulligan easily, and his face doesn’t have the hard lines as his friend. “If you give us the information, your death can at least be quick.” 

At least he hadn’t done him the disservice of pretending he would be leaving this room alive. “Small mercies,” John says, looking over at the man. He thinks he does, anyway; his vision goes a little skewed, as if he’s looking at him crosseyed. “You’re wasting your time.” 

The hand is back in his hair, and hey, can’t he lay off of his scalp, there’s a lot of nerve endings there and half of them are bloody at this point. John doesn’t know if any of that makes it past his lips, but he hears a muttered “heard he was a talker,” so at least he’s doing a good impression of Hamilton. 

Blinking his vision back into focus, he looks back up at redcoat number one - the asshole with a hair pulling fetish. “Usually folks buy me a drink at this point,” John says, rolling his head in the man’s grip, and his lips fall open into a lazy smile. At worst he’ll be hit again, but at least the man’s likely to let his hair go. 

He doesn’t. 

The man smiles, eyes like flint, and his other hand comes up, slow and casual. He holds the knife against John’s chest, below his heart, and pushes. 

John tries moving away, mouth falling open in shock and pain, but he’s bracketed by the wall and the man’s unforgiving grip. He kicks out with his feet, but it does nothing, and he feels the knife sliding in between his ribs, and oh god it hurts. 

“Taylor-” the man up against the desk says, sounding aghast, but Taylor doesn’t look back at him, just holds John’s gaze as he stabs him, slow and forceful. 

John’s choking on nothing, his throat making a horrific sound, eyes wide and unseeing as the pain never seems to _stop_. Until suddenly, the blade stills, and he looks down at the handle of the knife sticking out of his chest, out of his _chest_ -

“Ready for your drink?” 

When he opens his eyes, he’s on his back, a weird smell in the air, and a fucking knife still sticking out of his chest. Every breath his takes is shallow, it has to be - he might have avoided most of his organs, but the twinge in his breathing suggests his lung wasn’t one of the lucky ones. He feels blood in his throat and gags, and nearly blacks out again, the knife shifting along with his stomach. 

He’s gonna die like an animal in this stupid fucking room.

The smell, mild before, is stronger now, and John can't piece his thoughts together enough to recognize it. He sways where he sits, panting weakly, trying to decide if he wants to just rip the blade out and not draw his death out, when it comes to him. 

Smoke. It smells like smoke. 

Eyes roll in his head as he looks around, but nothing clues him in to why the smell would be so permeating. The stone beneath him is still frigid, and -

A scream cuts the air, more alarm than rage. Another one joins it, and John hears something heavy hit a wall. There’s a scrambling sound, a curse, and another slam. 

Smoke trickles in under the door. 

Laughter curdles in his throat, unbidden and unbridled. It sears through his chest like a brand, but he can’t stop. He’s not going to bleed out - he’s going to burn to death. 

“Sorry, Alex,” he huffs between gasps, the air already thickening with smoke. “Stupid.” 

Here lies John Laurens - or he would, if he didn’t get captured by a British squadron and get subsequently burned alive. He didn’t do much for the cause except die. Rest in peace. 

He lets his eyelids, already heavy, fall shut. 

Something is shaking him. It hurts, and John groans. 

“Just let me die, asshole,” he mutters, then coughs. It jolts the knife, and he tries to curl in on himself, a wet noise cut off in his throat as he rides through the pain. 

“No, you will not, I won’t let you,” the voice says, and John recognizes it. It’s not Taylor, back to watch him burn or choke. He can’t see who it is, but he knows that voice, it’s just not coming to him, and why can’t he see? 

He can’t see, because his eyes are still shut. Blinking them open is hard, but he does, curiosity a powerful motivator. 

Alexander Hamilton has an arm on his shoulder, and he looks terrified. 

“Oh,” John says. 

“John, oh god,” Alexander gasps, as if he's the one who can barely breathe, hand hovering over the blade handle with wide eyes. “I don’t-”

“Get me up. Don’t pull it out.” 

Those seven words are about all he can manage, so John hopes Alexander takes them seriously. Smoke has filled the room like a blanket, and it’s warmer now, too, but there’s no sight of fire besides the one still flickering from the lamp. 

“Okay, okay yeah,” Alexander says, hands still held aloft until he puts them gently under John’s armpits and lifts. John does his best to stand on his own, but his feet are still chained together, so he wobbles precariously. If he falls, he’s done for, and Hamilton seems to realize it. “Wait,” he says, then pulls out his sword and jams it between one of the chainlinks. A firm twist, and it snaps, rusted and cold as it is. He bends and makes quick work of loosening John’s ankles, and follows suit with the rope at his wrists. John takes the moment to swallow the blood creeping up his throat, and watches Hamilton as he tries to clear his pain-muddled thoughts. 

It works a bit, enough that he believes Alexander is really here, and he’s really still alive. 

“Okay,” Alexander parrots, clearly distraught but trying his best to formulate a plan. They’re under extreme pressure, so John thinks he’s doing a fine job. “I have a horse out back. Can you walk?” 

John doesn’t think he can speak without coughing, so he shrugs. It pulls on the knife, and he gasps, an ugly wet sound, and Alexander puts a hand on his back, rubs a circle he can feel through his coat. “Let’s try, come on, you’ve made it this far.” 

It should be condescending, but it isn’t. It’s a sad reassurance, and John appreciates that someone’s here to bear witness to his sheer tenacity to not be killed off the battlefield, in some shit cabin in the middle of British occupied territory. 

Every step is agony, but he takes them one at a time, until they’re through the door. As soon as it opens, a billow of smoke plows into them, and Alexander pushes him down to avoid it. It’s hell on his chest, but he rips off his cravat with a fumbling hand and covers his mouth, looking up at the flames licking at the ceiling. 

“Come on,” Alexander hollers over the roar, pulling John along. He’s barely upright at this point, stumbling and fumbling in the shorter man’s firm grip. At one point he shuts his eyes, the room too blurry for him to see anyway, and he doesn’t know they’ve made it out until he feels the cold on his face. Alexander lets go of his arm and he stumbles, falls to his hands and knees, and vomits blood into the snow. 

A loud shot cracks the air, and John looks up as a man hits the ground, redcoat stained dark with blood. It’s Taylor, staring sightlessly up at the stars. 

“John,” Alexander cries, shoving his pistol back into its holster as he reaches down for John’s arm. John lets himself be lifted out of the snow, bare feet already numb. 

“Thanks for coming,” he croaks, wiping his mouth with a shaking hand. Alexander looks ready to cry, but instead he presses a hand to John’s shoulder, pulling him gently closer until their foreheads press together. John tries to breathe without choking, and Alexander watches him, holding his shoulder like he’s holding on for life. When he pulls back, John lets his eyes fall shut, swaying where he stands. 

“Let’s get you back to camp,” Alex says, then wipes at what must have been blood on his chin. John wants to ask if he’d set the fire, how he’d found him, and how he’d gotten away in the first place. He nods instead and shuffles after Hamilton towards his bay mare, who’s snorting and stamping her hooves in anxiety. 

Alexander unties her, climbs up into the saddle and leans as far as he can, offering his arm to help John follow him up. Such a shame it would be, to survive a stabbing then a fire only to die trying to get on a damn horse. John stares, one horse becoming two, then three, and Alexander must get impatient because he grabs his lapel and pulls him closer. “Please, John,” he asks, and he really does sound like he’s close to tears, so John does his best. 

His best hurts. 

By the time he’s pulled up in front of Alexander, his chest feels like he’s being set on fire from the inside, and John leans forward over the pommel and wheezes out a breath, blood coming up his throat and dripping into the horse’s mane. He can barely breathe, it feels like drowning, and he gags again, tries to ask for help, but all that comes out is a “hgn” before he spits out more blood. 

Alexander wraps one arm around his middle while saying “it’s okay, you’re okay,” and kicks his mare into movement. She takes off like a shot, leaving the fire to burn in the cold night. 

John loses all sense of reality. 

Alexander’s grip is all that keeps him on the horse, every stride sending a shock of pain through his head and chest. It’s that warm band wrapped around his middle that John focuses on, even as he chokes for breath, as he sways, as he jerks in and out of consciousness - Alexander’s firm grip is always there, a vice keeping him up, keeping him alive. 

At one point they stop, and Alexander is murmuring in his ear, soft words he can’t understand, but then he processes “it’s okay, just get it out,” that he realizes he’s been coughing and wheezing, bent nearly in half as he tries in vain to bring air into his abused lungs. But it doesn’t work, nothing works, and Alexander is panicking, urging his horse on, saying “oh god,” and “please, John, please,” as if he’s not been holding onto life exclusively because Alexander’s kept him going. 

He doesn’t know when they get to camp, but Alexander is suddenly yelling, a mixture of orders and pleas, and there are too many hands on him, pulling him from the horse, and he heaves up more blood as they jostle the blade still tucked primly between his ribs. 

Lafayette is screaming somewhere in front of him, fast French cutting through the haze that’s settled on his senses like a mist. Like smoke. He looks for Alexander, but doesn’t see him. 

Then, he sees nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not sorry


End file.
